Benefit event becoming an October staple in downtown Solvang
Santa Ynez resident Jeff Gourson enjoys taking his restored maroon 1964 Pontiac GTO out to car shows, and even taking a drive in it with his wife Stacey to have lunch in Los Alamos. However, that doesn’t mean he completely enjoyed the road he took to finally get the vehicle in its current shape.
“It was nightmare; I never want to do it again,” Gourson said in Solvang on Saturday, Oct. 11, during the third annual Viking Classic Car Show. “If I decide to get a new car, I’ll go to one of the dealerships and get the finished product.”
However, he didn’t mind the attention the GTO got, as he won the Solvang Mayor’s Award, as Mayor David Brown picked that one as his favorite of the approximately 250 entries in the show.
It was the fifth annual car show put on by the Vikings of Solvang since the organizers of its predecessor, the Wheels and Windmills car show, decided to discontinue the event. The Vikings are a 501(c)(3) organization that provides funding for the medically related needs of qualified individuals and health care organizations in the Santa Ynez Valley and throughout Santa Barbara County. All money raised from the show went toward that goal.
The show’s Mayor’s Trophy pick seemed like it would be a difficult one for Brown, and maybe it was, until he talked to Gourson about his ride.
“I looked around at the cars, and I just saw this as one I would really love driving if I owned one,” Brown said after he presented Gourson with the award. “And then he told me the story about what he went through to get it this way, I knew I would pick this one.”
Ah, yes, the story behind the Pontiac. We’ll let Mr. Gourson continue with it.
“In 1964 my dad said he would co-sign for a car, and I told him I wanted a Pontiac LeMans Tempest,” he said. “Well, they didn’t have that one, so they offered me at GTO, and $3,100 later I brought it home.”
After a few years, Gourson decided to sell the car, but then started missing ownership of the car.
“I got a bug and I wanted my old car back,” he said. “So, my wife Stacey found a restoration company in Burbank and the guy there found the old frame for the model.
“However, shortly after he started restoring it, he went bankrupt,” Gourson said. “I got a letter from his lawyer saying I’d better come and get it or they will impound it, so I went down there with a trailer and brought it back. After we stored it for about five years, we got a new restorer. Then we found out none of the parts we had fit. After contacting the previous restorer, the one who went bankrupt, he claimed he got robbed and they stole all the original stuff off the car. But we got it done, eventually.”
And now Courson takes his car to the weekly Cars and Coffee event at El Rancho Marketplace in Santa Ynez, and it has now won an award.
“I’m very proud of it,” he said. “I certainly didn’t see it [the award] coming, but it’s nice.”
What was also nice was the turnout for the show, both in entries and audience, according to car show co-chairmans Gregg Weitzman and Jordan Sideris.
“We sold out with the 250 show entries ahead of time, but then we had some drop out, which happens,” Wietzman said. “But then we had some entries show up this moning to make up for that, so we had it pretty close to sold out.”
Not only was it a sellout in excellent weather conditions, but it was all for a good cause, Sideris said.
“This and the golf fundraiser are our main fundraisers,” he said. “We have no overhead and 100% goes to those families in need.”
Downtown Solvang saw cars lined up along Copenagen Drive and both 1st and 2nd streets, as folks admired, or showed off, plenty of motorized masterpieces.
One group displaying their wheels were member of the Nite Life car club in Santa Barbara, who had eight vehicles on the east end of Copenhagen.
“Our club started in 1980 and we have about 20 of these events every year, tradition lowrider stuff; and this is one we like to come to,” said Danny Trejo, one of the club members. “We like to promote the fact that we’re going outside and enjoying the fresh air instead of sitting at home or being on drugs.”
A couple more of the Nite Life members Cesar Palma and Bobby Pulman, however, were just here to enjoy the scene.
“I love it here, it’s really nice,” Palma said. “We get to see some cars and meet some people to talk cars. it’s really nice,” Palma said.
Pulman agreed: “We like to see the vehicles, but making interactions with the people here is great.”
